PIERCE A. MAHAFFEY. – To all those traveling in the older times across the rugged Blue Mountain range, the Blue Mountain House is a well-remembered spot. Its ample dimensions, its bountiful far, its genial good cheer, and its generosity and hospitality, made it a welcome relief from the toil of the road. The untimely death of this well-known gentleman has now cast its shadow over the place.
Mr. Mahaffey was born in Park county, Indiana, January 25, 1841, and was educated in Iowa, whither he removed in 1850, where he was engaged in farming until 1862. In that year he crossed the plains to Oregon and went to Salem, where he remained for five years thereafter. The business of freighting drew him past La Grande, Oregon; and in 1867 he removed thither, locating his family, which then consisted of his mother and sister, now Mrs. L.O. Sterns of Baker City, Oregon. After two years in the drug business, and also a time spent in the brokerage business, be bought the Blue Mountain House and conducted it successfully until his death, February 14, 1888, nine years later.
He was married in 1875 to Miss Lou McWaters, daughter of William McWaters, a planter of distinction in Southern Kentucky. His children are Maggie D. and Ernest P.
Mr. Mahaffey was a very active man in a public capacity, ever at the front in all improvements, and was constantly sought for public positions. He was a justice of the peace eight or nine years, and was a councilman of the city, taking an active part in all matters relating to the welfare of the town. He invested largely in farming land, and at the time of his death, in the forty-eighth year of his age, owned forty-seven hundred acres. His death was universally deplored. It can be said of him, which can be said of few men of his age, that never a year passed that he did not visit his mother, for whom he always retained the most ardent affection, as well as every member of his family.